Born from a serious aversion to desk work coupled with a strong case of wanderlust, this hip, smart travel site documents the adventures of low-budget travel for independently minded women. Needless to say, this is not your father's companion site to a PBS documentary series. In "Cuba: Paradox Found," our intrepid film crew talks to an ex-Black Panther exile and a Santeria priestess. The site is loaded with travel tips, journal entries, interview transcripts, and more. How else to describe it? "Think of us as an estrogen-charged, virtual Elks club."
This may be the first truly amazing site of the millennium. According to its makers, Constructor "animates and edits two-dimensional models made out of masses and springs." According to a recent user, Constructor "has these crazy, wicked insect thingies that you can mess with and stuff!" We have yet to come up with a better description of this phenomenal hybrid of video game and erector set. Hint - turn the gravity off in Amoeba mode for some real fun.
Mouseketeers, prepare to be blown away. We've stumbled onto the mother of all Disney sites. Truly awe-inspiring, the Laughing Place is an uber nexus of Disney-related news items, trivia facts, insider tips, discussion boards, television highlights, and much more. This week's columns include a piece on a hypothetical all-Disney Oscars, an analysis of the new Disneyland entrance and exit area, and a complete report from Cinderella's 50th Anniversary Royal Celebration. Consider it the ultimate web log for Disney fans.
The Big Waste of Space is a fantastic waste of time. Your host Wesley Treat has created a mixed media slacker masterpiece. From the detailed catalogue of Jurassic Park bloopers, to the dozens of wonderfully useless factoids, this online shrine to nothing in particular is pure joy. Did you know that the Michelin Man's real name is Bibendum? Of course you didn't -- it's a totally useless piece of information! And if the sound clip of "He Slept On His Arms," doesn't make you laugh, then you're clinically dead.
"If all this suffering does not help us to broaden our horizon, to attain a greater humanity... then it will have been for nothing." Thus reads the introduction to Scott L. Sakansky's photo tour of Europe's World War II concentration camps, a dark travelogue that goes from Auchswitz and Buchenwald to Warsaw and on to Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial. Wisely, the photographer lets these images speak for themselves -- a testimony and moment of remembrance.
Tom Mangan is a seasoned and playful web writer: Newsies, his celebration of journalists with home pages, thrived from 1996 till its retirement in April 1999. Now Mangan, a recent immigrant to Silicon Valley from the Midwest, has gifted us with articulate, seven-question interviews of intelligent, unfamous people pursuing their lives, work, and interests. Interviewees include artists, authors, humorists, journalists, techies, teens, and web loggers. Individual responses are indexed by subject as well as respondent, so that readers can enjoy topical entries on marriage, memory, hybrid cars, coping with kids, raising llamas, and more.
It's an arts magazine. No wait, it's a giftshop, gallery, consultancy, auction, and vault -- Artstar is, indeed, "everything art." We browsed daily arts headlines, learned about current museum shows from London to Seattle, noted Van Gogh's birthday, and ogled an exquisite Murano glass champagne flute. We read a fascinating piece about kimono painting in the 21st century and the transcript of an expert's lecture on "Examining Ivory." Window-shopping here is a pleasure.
The research scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute present this multi-faceted chronicle of a current expedition to the mid-ocean ridge. The deep submergence vessel Melville is exploring the eastern Pacific off Central America, seeking new volcanic eruptions on the undersea crest where several tectonic plates meet. Daily updates portray the routines of life on a science ship; informative modules explain hydrothermal vents and the extraordinary life forms that thrive there; and videos, glossaries, timelines, maps, and charts abound.